Intrigue and conspiracy run rampant across 19th-century Europe in this wildly popular and controversial novel from the author of The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, and Baudolino. Jesuits plot against Freemasons, Italian republicans strangle priests with their own intestines, French criminals plan bombings by day and celebrate Black Masses at night, and every nation has its own secret service for perpetrating thefts, propaganda, and murder. But what if, behind all of these real or imagined plots, lay one man—the same evil genius who penned the infamous "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a forgery that damned Europe's Jews well into the 20th century? Umberto Eco tells a brilliant tale by sticking to the facts: with the lone exception of investigator Simone Simonini, all of the major characters here really existed.

"Choreographed by a truth that is itself so strange a novelist need hardly expand on it to produce a wondrous tale ... Eco is to be applauded for bringing this stranger-than-fiction truth vividly to life."—NYTimes

"A whirlwind tour of conspiracy and political intrigue ... this dark tale is delightfully embellished with sophisticated and playful commentary on, among other things, Freud, metafiction, and the challenges of historiography."—Booklist